Month: November 2007

In a very insightful
post, Scott Guthrie detail the current .Net web roadmap. Of particular interest
is the Silverlight related text. First of all, THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU for
officially re-branding taking Silverlight 1.1 to Silverlight 2.0. As somebody that’s
given numerous talks, the confusion that existed between 1.0 and 1.1 in conjunction
with all of the other version numbers floating around became a little much.
Silverlight 2.0 makes things a lot easier to explain.

In Scott’s post, he details many specific new features that we can look forward to,
hopefully in another preview release later this year before the beta next year. His
highlights include:

WPF UI Framework: The current Silverlight Alpha release
only includes basic controls support and a managed API for UI drawing. The next
public Silverlight preview will add support for the higher level features of the WPF
UI framework. These include: the extensible control framework model, layout
manager support, two-way data-binding support, and control template and skinning support.
The WPF UI Framework features in Silverlight will be a compatible subset of the WPF
UI Framework features in last week’s .NET Framework 3.5 release.

Rich Networking Support: Silverlight will deliver rich
networking support. The next Silverlight preview release will add support for
REST, POX, RSS, and WS* communication. It will also add support for cross domain
network access (so that Silverlight clients can access resources and data from any
trusted source on the web).

The most important part in my opinion is the official introduction of controls, layout,
and binding support. A lot of people having been doing some very creative work on
these to show the potential, but we’ve all been anxiously awaiting the official story.
When you look at the sample sites of control vendors like Telerik, Component One,
Infragistics, etc you can see the power that exists. Having the official base to build
these on will just expand this potential.

Reading that “compatible subset of the WPF UI Framework”
is music to my ears! This will make it extremely easy for organizations working with
WPF/XAML today to instantly be productive with Silverlight. For people considering
the technology, this gives you even more return potential for the learning and training
investment required.

Having a Go-Live license in Q1 is also great news! It’s been difficult to see the
power, but not really be able to put it to use yet,

Great job to everybody that’s been working on this, I can’t wait to get my hands dirty
on some new bits. (please be soon!)

The Triangle .NET User Group is going to be hosting an exciting meeting in December
to celebrate the release of Visual Studio 2008. As part of our launch party, attendees
will be given an opportunity to install the RTM version Visual Studio 2008 Professional.

EVERYONE THAT REGISTERS FOR AND ATTENDS THE EVENT IN PERSON WILL RECEIVE A
FREE LICENSE KEY FOR VISUAL STUDIO 2008 PROFESSIONAL!

Please note a couple of key things, you must first REGISTER to attend this event by
logging into www.trinug.org and registering for
this event. Space is limited, so don’t delay. We’re working on a couple of options
to secure a larger venue for the event, but will likely start a waiting list shortly.
At the event, the Trial Version will be provided for install. The license key that
wil be sent within 90 days from Microsoft will unlock this version without need for
a reinstall.

At the event, during the install party we will be holding a number of short 30 minute
presentations on a variety of VS2008/.Net 3.5 topics. If you’re interested in presenting
with us, please let me know.

As part of the evening, we will also be asking that all in attendance bring a donation
for the local food bank. We will be accepting food and cash donations at the event.

I’ve ben closely watching the Scott and Scott show
off the new ASP.NET MVC Framework. If you haven’t been following along, here’s some
reading to keep you busy until we see a CTP release sometime soon. (Hopefully real
soon!)

As somebody that’s been following what been going on with Ruby frameworks like RAILS,
as well as REST I’m very interested in seeing how this applies to the ASP.NET world.
I’m still forming opinions, but I find the potential very exciting.

Congratulations to all of the teams involved in bringing Visual Studio 2008 to market!

It’s always a great feeling to be able to pull beta bits off of a system, and install
the release version. It’s been tough not using VS2008 for everything, but now that
wait is over, and we’re on to the rest. I anxiously await seeing the ASP.NET MVC
Framework, the next Silverlight 1.1 update,
more Astoria, ASP.NET Futures and
anything else Microsoft wants to update before years end!

I meant to blog this last week when I noticed the announcement during the Silverlight
DevCamp in DC that ComponentOne had released an Alpha Preview of their Silverlight
1.1 control framework.

I’ve been following along with great anticipation as they seem to have one of the
most complete control solutions. We’re all still anxiously awaiting the official Silverlight
control story is going to be, C1 is certainly showing how great the potential is.

Microsoft has always been involved in the developer community, but it’s great to see
the new ideas and innovations that are taking place to spread the word on new technologies.

The latest includes a number of Microsoft DE’s (Some that I’ve been privileged to
meet recently. I met Lynn and Woody at
the INETA Leadership Summit out in LA earlier this fall and I met Anand at
Dev Connections last week following his MOST EXCELLENT Silverlight demo during the
keynote)

Put 8 developers in an RV and send them across the country to talk code. Sounds like
a blast! I haven’t seen the schedule, but I hope they make it out East to Raleigh
NC, or I manage to end up somewhere along the route. It’s definitely going to be a
fun bunch to follow! (Twitter: http://twitter.com/codetrip Facebook: join
the group RSS: Subscribe
To The Feed)

I’m hopeful that they be sure to drop in on any INETA User
Group meetings along the way. I’m sure most groups would throw together a special
event while they’re in town.

This
morning after stuffing us with bagels and coffee, Frank
La Vigne kicked off SilverlightDevCampDC. Frank started the day with a intro to
SIlverlight keynote, followed by local Microsoft DE Andrew
Duthie.